Harrouff victim’s family files wrongful death suit
Lawsuit: Harrouff took ‘shroom concoction’ prior to fatal attacks.
STUART — Jodi Bruce and her family are tired of waiting. Nearly two years after her sister, Michelle Mishcon, and her sister’s husband, John Stevens III, were attacked and killed by Austin Harrouff at their home along the Palm Beach-Martin border, there hasn’t been a trial. She said she knows “the wheels of justice move slowly” and that they have little control over what happens in the criminal proceedings.
“We want justice for Michelle and John,” she read from a written statement outside the Martin County Courthouse on Tuesday afternoon. “(Harrouff ) will pay
for what he has done. If not with his life, then with the only thing we can get from him, which is a civil judgment.”
Mishcon’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Harrouff, a 20-year-old Jupiter resident, on Tuesday, eight days shy of the two-year anniversary of the
fatal attacks.
Harrouff is charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the Aug. 15, 2016, fatal stabbings of Stevens, 59, and Mishcon, 53, at their home on Southeast Kokomo Lane in southern Martin County.
The story made international headlines after authorities said they found Harrouff on top of Stevens, biting his face.
Harrouff, who is also charged with one count of attempted murder for attacking a neighbor who tried to intervene, remains in the Martin County Jail with- out bail awaiting trial. Harrouff’s attorneys, Robert Watson and Nellie King, have previously said their client suffered from undiagnosed mental illnesses at the time of the attacks.
Bruce said she is “tired and sickened” by the way Harrouff has been portrayed as an “ordinary college student” and that his lawyers are claiming he has a mental illness “because there’s no other explanation for what he did.”
“We strongly disagree on every point, and we intend on proving that in the civil action,” she said.
Evan Fetterman, the attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of Mishcon’s family, said they filed it to “achieve the justice the fam- ily deserves.”
“For too long (the family) has watched as the focus has been on the man imprisoned for killing their loved ones rather than where it should be: on the victims,” Fetter- man said.
He said they are filing the lawsuit now because in Flor- ida the statute of limitations is two years. Fetterman said that at this time, there “is no specific monetary amount sought,” and that the lawsuit is only against Harrouff, not his parents, though the
Mishcon family is still inves- tigating that possibility. During Tuesday’s news conference, Bruce said in the records of hundreds of hours of jail phone calls Harrouff has made since his arrest, she and her family have not heard any remorse. Instead, she said, Harrouff said he’s at peace with himself. “In our opinion, (Harrouff ) is a monster and he deserves to pay with his life, or at the minimum, be locked up in prison for the rest of his life,” she said. “But, again, we have no control over that.” The lawsuit states Harrouff was a “habitual user” of mar- ijuana, hallucinogenic mush- rooms, LSD and other illicit drugs and regularly “drank alcohol to excess,” while he cannot legally drink yet. Martin County sheriff’s deputies originally believed Harrouff was high on flakka, a designer drug linked to paranoia, visions, superhu- man strength and sometimes violence. Several drug tests, including one done by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, showed there were no drugs in his system, other than trace amounts of alcohol and marijuana. T he laws u it, though, alleges Harrouff consumed a “shroom concoction” before the fatal attacks. Harrouff had been out to dinner with his father and sister at a Duffy’s Sports Grill in Jupiter on Aug. 15, 2016, when he stormed out after an argument. He went to his mother’s home, drank a concoction of cooking oil and Parmesan cheese, according to witnesses, then went back to the Duffy’s to sit with his family until he abruptly left again. The lawsuit alleges the drink actually contained the hallucinogenic mushrooms. Fetterman s aid they believe it was “shrooms” after reviewing text messages and phone calls from the day of the incident. Mishcon’s family said Harrouff was not tested for mushrooms at the time. Then, according to authorties, he headed to the Southeast Kokomo Lane home where he fatally stabbed Mishcon several times with a switchblade he had bought with his father, Wade, the day before. Then, Harrouff attacked the neighbor Jeff Fisher, who got away, and Stevens, killing him. Harrouff ’s next court hearing for his criminal case is Sept. 5.